714 JOHN DONNE, D.D. DIED MARCH 31. 1631. And DONNE was of Welsh extraction, but a Londoner | Morton held the benefice, which he proposed to by birth; and related, on the mother's side, to Hey-vacate that Donne might be presented to it. wood the Epigrammatist, to Rastall the printer, and to Sir Thomas More. He was born in 1573, and when only eleven years old, was placed at Hertford Hall, Oxford. After three years he removed to Trinity College, Cambridge. He took no degree at either University, because he had been educated as a Papist. At the age of seventeen he was entered at Lincoln's Inn, and began to study the law. But shortly afterwards his father died, leaving him three thousand pounds; upon which he betook himself to better studies, though to a less prudential course of life. it was not less generously declined: Donne thought that the irregularities of his youth, thoroughly as he had repented of them, and reformed his course of life, might still expose him to censure, and that censure, were he to enter into holy orders, might bring an undeserved reproach upon the sacred calling. For this reason, and because he stood in too much need of a certain maintenance not to be influenced by that need in his inclination and desire to accept the offer, he deemed it his duty to decline it. The latter motive no longer existed, and the holiness of Donne's life and conversation had set him above all reproach, when some years afterwards he entered into orders, at Morton's repeated exhortations, and by King James's especial desire. That king loved learning, and knew how to appreciate learned men. Donne, as James had expected, became a distinguished ornament of the English church; and died Dean of St. Paul's, on the last day of March, 1631. A serious, dispassionate, humble, and religious examination of the points of difference between the Romish and the English church, terminated in his sincere and dutiful conversion to the Protestant faith. He afterwards accompanied Essex as a volunteer in the expedition to Cadiz; travelled in Spain and Italy; and always repented that he had been deterred, by the representations of others, from proceeding to the Holy Land. The very interesting story of his marriage, and of the narrow circum-lished by his son. stances to which he was reduced, having expended his patrimony in storing his mind, should be read in the delightful narrative of Izaak Walton. At the age of thirty-four he declined the offer of a benefice from Dr. Morton, afterwards Bishop of Durham. The offer was generously made ; for Two years after his death, his poems were pub- more worthy of such a father, if he had destroyed a age. THE ANNIVERSARY. ALL kings, and all their favourites, The sun itself (which makes times, as they pass) Two graves must hide thine and my corse: Oft fed with true oaths, and with sweet salt tears: But souls where nothing dwells but love; (All other thoughts being inmates) then shall prove This, or a love increased there above, When bodies to their graves, souls from their graves remove. And then we shall be throughly bless'd: True and false fears let us refrain: To write threescore, this is the second of our reign. My constancy I to the planets give; My truth to them who at the court do live; To Jesuits; to buffoons my pensiveness; My money to a capuchin. Thou, Love, taught'st me, by appointing me To love there, where no love receiv'd can be, Only to give to such as have no good capacity. My faith I give to Roman Catholics; All my good works unto the schismatics Of Amsterdam; my best civility And courtship to an university: My modesty I give to soldiers bare. My patience let gamesters share. Thou, Love, taught'st me, by making me Love her, that holds my love disparity, Only to give to those that count my gifts indignity. THE FUNERAL. WHOEVER Comes to shroud me, do not harm Nor question much That subtle wreath of hair about mine arm; Viceroy to that, which unto heav'n being gone, Will leave this to control, And keep these limbs, her provinces, from dissolution. For if the sinewy thread my brain lets fall Through every part, Can tie those parts, and make me one of all; [art Those hairs, which upward grow, and strength and Have from a better brain, Can better do 't: except she meant that I As prisoners then are manacl'd, when they 're condemn'd to die. THE RELIQUE. WHEN my grave is broke up again (For graves have learn'd that woman-head, And he that digs it, spies A bracelet of bright hair about the bone, And think that there a loving couple lies, Who thought that this device might be some way If this fall in a time, or land, Where mass-devotion doth command, All women shall adore us, and some men ; First we lov'd well and faithfully, Yet knew not what we lov'd, nor why; Perchance might kiss, but yet between those meals UPON THE LOSS OF HIS MISTRESS'S CHAIN, FOR WHICH HE MADE SATISFACTION. Nor, that in colour it was like thy hair, That as these links were knit, our loves should be; I think possesseth, they come here to us, Of some dread conjurer, that would enforce Or were it such gold as that, wherewithall [part, I would not spit to quench the fire they 're in, But if, when all his art and time is spent, [rents Thou say'st, alas! the gold doth still remain, Though it be chang'd, and put into a chain; So in the first fall'n angels resteth still Wisdom and knowledge, but 't is turn'd to ill: As these should do good works, and should provide Necessities; but now must nurse thy pride: And they are still bad angels; mine are none : For form gives being, and their form is gone: Pity these angels yet: their dignities Pass virtues, powers, and principalities. But thou art resolute; thy will be done; But oh, thou wretched finder, whom I hate Here fetter'd, manacled, and hang'd in chains, May all the evils, that gold ever wrought; But if that from it thou be'st loth to part, TO SIR HENRY GOODYERE. WHO makes the last a pattern for next year, Turns no new leaf, but still the same things reads; Seen things he sees again, heard things doth hear, And makes his life but like a pair of beads. A palace when 't is that which it should be, Leaves growing, and stands such, or else decays: But he which dwells there, is not so; for he Strives to urge upward, and his fortune raise. So had your body her morning, hath her noon, 'The noble soul by age grows lustier, Her appetite and her digestion mend; Provide you manlier diet; you have seen All libraries, which are schools, camps, and courts; But ask your garners, if you have not been In harvest too indulgent to your sports. Would you redeem it? Then yourself transplant A while from hence. Perchance outlandish ground Bears no more wit than ours; but yet more scant Are those diversions there which here abound. To be a stranger hath that benefit, We can beginnings, but not habits choke. Our soul, whose country's heav'n, and God her father, It pays you well, if it teach you to spare, And make you asham'd to make your hawk's praise yours, Which when herself she lessens in the air, You then first say, that high enough she tow'rs. Now if this song be too harsh for rhyme, yet as I shall be thought (if mine like thine I shape) TO MR. B. B. Is not thy sacred hunger of science Yet satisfy'd? is not thy brain's rich hive Fulfill'd with honey, which thou dost derive From the arts' spirits and their quintessence? Then wean thyself at last, and thee withdraw From Cambridge, thy old nurse; and, as the rest, Here toughly chew and sturdily digest Th' immense vast volumes of our common law; And begin soon, lest my grief grieve thee too, Which is that that, which I should have begun In my youth's morning, now late must be done : And I as giddy travellers must do, Which stray or sleep all day, and having lost Light and strength, dark and tir'd must then ride post. TO MR. J. W. ALL hail, sweet poet! and full of more strong fire, Men say, and truly, that they better be, Oh, how I grieve, that late-born modesty Hath got such root in easy waxen hearts, ΤΟ SIR HENRY WOOTTON, AT HIS GOING AMBASSADOR TO VENICE. AFTER those rev'rend papers, whose soul is [name, Our good and great king's lov'd hand and fear'd By which to you he derives much of his, And (how he may) makes you almost the same, A taper of his torch, a copy writ From his original, and a fair beam Of the same warm and dazzling Sun, though it Must in another sphere his virtue stream; After those learned papers, which your hand Hath stor'd with notes of use and pleasure too, From which rich treasury you may command Fit matter, whether you will write or do ; After those loving papers, which friends send With glad grief to your sea-ward steps farewell, Which thicken on you now, as pray'rs ascend To heaven in troops at a good man's passing bell; Admit this honest paper, and allow It such an audience as yourself would ask; That men may not themselves their own good What you must say at Venice, this means now, And hath for nature, what you have for task. To swear much love, not to be chang'd before |